A peek behind the curtain at the secrets of a courtesan

Amy Tan does not have a fabulous closet befitting a world-famous author. She is in the midst of cleaning it when BookPage calls to talk about her lush new novel, The Valley of Amazement.“It’s a terrible closet,” Tan says with a laugh from her home in New York City. “It’s a teeny-tiny closet. The doors keep going off...

An Asian tour gone wrong

Bibi Chen, the wealthy entrepreneur philanthropist narrator of Amy Tan's gorgeously written, satirical and deeply humane novel Saving Fish from Drowning, is dead—she's not sure, but she believes she was murdered. Yet Bibi, the thoroughly Americanized child of a Shanghai aristocrat and his concubine, still follows along on the Asian tour she'd arranged for her liberal-minded friends, if...

A tale of mystery and family from Amy Tan

Amy Tan's new book, The Bonesetter's Daughter, is full of mystery, suspense, superstition and magic. It is a novel as layered as the bone-filled caves outside Peking, and the clues are as shrouded in dust and history as any ancient archaeological dig. Ruth Liu is a writer sandwiched between the man she lives with, his daughters and her aging mother. She is also in a race to discover the true...